


This Unspoken Thing

by siriuslydraco



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2018-12-21 19:17:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11950881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriuslydraco/pseuds/siriuslydraco
Summary: jon and sansa have been best friends their entire life, but feelings deeper than friendship develop and both find themselves incompetent to admit them. now sansa is pregnant with someone else’s baby, and jon is half way across the world





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> questions unanswered and words unspoken are the weapons of loss that left me broken  
> \- jessica katoff

**_New York City_ **

_Present Day_

There had always been something about the night time air that managed to clear ones head like nothing else; the sharp chill and bite of the wind was enough to straighten out the most messiest of thoughts in a persons head or calm the loudest horrors. Perhaps that's why Jon always found himself escaping onto rooftops at three in the morning, while gazing at the stars and brooding about past life choices and scenarios he wishes he could render. Most times it helps, and most times he's able to climb down the steps of the roof and find his way back to his apartment, feeling colder but level headed.

This, however, is not one of those times.

His third bottle of beer feels lighter in his hand, but so does his head, as he leans his elbows against the concrete edges of the wall that stretches and wraps around the rooftop. There are thousands of stars in the sky, and for once Jon is glad he's able to see them. Sometimes in a city as big and bright as New York it can seem like they're so far away, and so dim. Not like how they used to look to him; so dazzling and beautiful as he laid on a Yorkshire beach with a flame haired girl while wrapped in a tartan blanket. The stars used to look so much brighter, and so close he could almost stick his hand out and catch one. But now they hang there against the darkness, dimming ever so slightly and disappearing with each breath he takes.

The beer is cold against his teeth as he chugs half of it down, making the bottle even lighter again, but he can't come to regret the decision he's made to get absolutely stone cold drunk tonight. The reason for his eminent inebriation is sitting bent edged and wrinkled in his pocket, and Jon feels like it's slowly burning a hole inside him. He doesn't want to keep looking at it but he finds now and again his hand will reach for it unknowingly and he can't seem to help himself.

It's as horrifying as it was the first time he saw it- sitting on his floor as it was so graciously shoved through his letter box, it's ivory paper and purple lace trim around the edges making his vision blur and his stomach churn. Jon had never been one for drinking much, but he knows this time his sickening symptoms has nothing to do with alcohol. It's heavy in his hands, a weight he finds is not so much physical as it is emotional.

It's a wedding invitation- a cruel and bitter joke the gods and fate herself has decided to play on him but one he's not been accustomed to laughing at. Another swig of beer makes a shiver roll through him as it passes by his lips, and the taste itself is as bitter as this whole situation. The city below is wide awake and it is filled with all the noises Jon now associates with New York alone.

There's the honking of the many yellow cabs that gather below like a swarm of angry wasps, all impatient and frustrated with the ever swelling collection of traffic. The sound of the cab drivers anger is mixed in with the thrum of music and warped chatter that reaches Jon from where he stands- the highest of them all, the king of the city- but the height he stands is no escape from the electricity that trickles from every corner of Manhattan. Then there's the distant playing of a saxophone that Jon knows an old man from the building across likes to play on nights as calm as this- the pleasant sounding jazz floating to where he is. And if Jon cranes his neck downwards and braves the vision of the sickening height he's raised on, then he'll see the teenage couple that sits on the fire escape, heads bent low and giggling like the way he used to with _her_.

It's all brought back then, the reason he's here brooding in the first place, and the ivory card in his hands makes him feel sick all over again. He's read and reread it so many times that he can picture the words in his mind when he closes his eyes, and he can recite every word that's written in it. But no matter how many times he's seen it he still has to prepare himself.

The writing is elegant and gold, written in a pen that sparkles against the thin paper that is shaped like a heart on the inside of the card, and there are tiny white roses printed along the edges. It is all so neat and proper, exactly the sort of thing that goes hand in hand with the person he knows sent it. But the thought of her, of his life long best friend, does not even bring up the slightest shred of happiness as he reads the gold words.

_Harrold Hardyng and Sansa Stark request your presence at the ceremony and celebration of their marriage....._

Jon can't bring himself to read any more, his eyes turning away from the golden scrawl of her name and to the twinkling sky above. He's close to her now in that moment, as he stares at the sky he knows rest's over them both- even if she's back in Yorkshire and he's half way across the world it's comforting to know he can look at something and know she's looking at it too. But he wishes for the first time in his entire life that he had never known her, had never decided to talk to her the first day of primary school. He wishes he hadn't told Theon to stop pulling her ginger pigtails, wishes he hadn't told him to leave her alone and he wishes most of all he hadn't stuck out a childish hand and said _"Hi, I'm Jon"_

If he hadn't perhaps it would've been different. Perhaps they wouldn't have become inseparable throughout their childhood and well into their teenage years. Maybe Sansa wouldn't have caused him so much pain, and he her. He wishes he could go back in time and tell that chubby little kid to never speak to the girl with the bright eyes and the red hair. Maybe then she wouldn't be marrying someone else.

Perhaps they themselves wouldn't have been just another _maybe._


	2. dances and broken promises

_**England** _

_5 years earlier_

"Mum! Have you seen my shoe?" the shout of the wildest household resident reaches all the way upstairs into the sunlit room that Sansa Stark stands in- a heated curling iron in one hand and a thick strand of red hair in the other. She grits her teeth in an attempt to stop the annoying pounding in her head that has been put there due to the noise that is a common thing in her home. Bran and Rickon had just finished a shouting match over who deserved the toy at the end of the cereal box, and Robb's irritating early morning rap music that he plays in the shower has been echoing in her mind for hours now. 

"SANSA? WHERE IS MY SHOE?" the bellow is grating on her ears and she tries hard not to wince a little as she growls at her sisters utter annoyance. 

"Arya will you ever shut it?" Sansa roars back impatiently as she wraps her hair around the curling iron, the steam tickling her nostrils as it rises in the air. 

"Girls please stop it! You'll be late for school if you don't hurry up" she hears the voice of her mother shout up the stairs, and she can't help but roll her eyes before looking at herself in the mirror. She looks the same as she always does on a Monday morning, baggy eyed with a look of permanent exhaustion written on her face that had been put there due to lengthy telephone conversations with Jon. He may be her best friend, the closest person to her in the world but he deserves a smack for always managing to keep her up at night; muffled giggles into her pillow and laughter ranging to full blown hysteria due to lack of sleep. 

She covers her mouth now as a yawn wracks through her. Her blue eyes leak from the corners and she sighs heavily when a thin line of blackened tears run down her cheeks from her mascara. Despite the look of tiredness on her face, she looks otherwise perfect. Her uniform- a navy blazer and grey tartan skirt- seem impeccably placed on her body and she smooths down her navy tie and the shiny prefect badge that is pinned to the lapel of her blazer. It's something Arya scoffs at, and something Theon and Robb tease her over but she's proud to wear it, and besides Jon always tells her it's great. She smiles then as she fixes her hair one last time, turning off the curling iron and grabbing her school bag before rushing downstairs. 

Arya, as impatient and swift moving as always, barges through her as she walks down the stairs causing Sansa to nearly trip and fall to her sure death. 

"You better not be hiding my shoe, Sansa" Arya murderously mutters as she makes her way past her red haired sister, those eyes she definitely inherited from the Stark side glaring at her venomously. 

"I don't have your fucking shoe, you little demon" 

"Sansa! Language!" her mother all but screams from the kitchen, and for what is probably the one hundredth time this morning, Sansa rolls her eyes. 

"What's that mum? Five pounds for the swear jar?" it's the oldest Stark who speaks now, strutting from the kitchen with his tie laying haphazardly around his neck, his white shirt pulled out from his trousers and a piece of jam covered toast hanging from his mouth. His messy appearance is enough to give the laziest person anxiety and Sansa cringes away from him. He raises his eyebrows in a triumphant sort of spite that makes Sansa glare at him, but all he does is flash a handsome smile back.

"Fuck you" she hisses at him as he laughs, picking up his bag and heading for the door.

"That's ten pounds now, little sis. You should give it to me instead of mum, since I know you climbed out your window on Friday and went to the beach with Jon" his laughter is quiet enough for their mum not to hear, but Sansa fumes all the same and all but pushes him out the front door, muttering curses under her breath while the eldest Stark child struts from the house to meet up with his equally annoying friend-Theon.

She's still seething at the fact that Robb has a potential reason for blackmail hanging over her head, but it wouldn't be the first time she's left the house without permission to do something wild with Jon, and the sight of breakfast calms her a little as she walks into the Victorian style kitchen, her mother looking as stressed but as beautiful as ever as she stands over the coffee pot. 

"Toast is on the table, love. Hopefully your brothers haven't eaten all of it yet" Catelyn smiles, soft wrinkles appearing around her eyes when she does. Her mother is stern most of the time, but as loving and as soft as any other woman that Sansa knows and it's easy to see that when she beams as brightly as she does now. Her curly haired brothers sit at the table, Bran pulling a long face as he glares at Rickon, and Sansa can see why when she spots that the youngest Stark now holds a shiny red rocket in his hands. Clearly Rickon had won the fight over the cereal toy this time around. 

There's a steaming pot of tea awaiting her when she sits down, and she sighs gratefully when she takes her first sip, but it's short lived as the sound of pounding feet charge down the stairs. Sansa sighs heavily and bites off of a corner of toast angrily as Arya storms into the kitchen, red faced and bright eyed, one black shoe held in her pinched fingers. 

"Who came up with the brilliant idea of putting peanut butter in my shoe?" her voice is scarily calm, that same tone their father uses when he's trying not to get murderously angry, and Sansa can not help but smirk a little at the sight of her with one shoe on and a navy knee high sock that is coated in a layer of peanut butter at the top. Her two mischievous brothers look at one another and all previous battle between them vanishes as both laugh like maniacs at the sight of her. 

"I am going to ki -" 

"Kindly refrain from anything rash, Arya Stark" Catelyn's warning tone tells her, a look of motherly fury in her blue eyes "and you boys are grounded, no tv or dessert for you for an entire week, do you understand?" 

Their chorus of Yes, Mum is drowned out by the ringing of the doorbell and Sansa jumps to her feet, her hands automatically going to smooth down her skirt. It's around this time every day that Jon comes to her door to make the ten minute walk to Winterfell Community School, where all the Starks and the north side of town attend. 

"Hey, Sansa!" her mother calls out to her before she reaches the door and Sansa spins on her heels, red hair flying over her shoulder as she does "are you home early tonight?" 

"No, Mum. I'm helping out with the prep for the dance so I won't be home" she tells her while trying to ignore Arya's very purposeful eye roll that she gives her behind their mothers shoulder. 

"Has Jon gotten his suit yet?" she asks her but Sansa shakes her head. It was typical for them to go together, they've been going to every school dance with one another since they started secondary school, and Jon like Robb liked to leave everything to the last minute. 

"Not yet, but we agreed to go shopping at the weekend. He needs to match his tie to my dress or else I won't be going with him" it's a joke of course, but a feeble one. Jon must co ordinate with her or they won't look right. There's a look in her mothers eyes then that Sansa knows all too well. It's a bright spark of something that screams investigation and it's always alight within Catelyn whenever Jon's name is brought up. Sansa knows what it must look like on the outside, but there is nothing but friendship between them and it's almost tiresome at this stage to be looked at with such speculation. 

"Alright, darling. I'll see you later. Have fun at school"

Highly doubtful, she thinks as she swings her bag over her shoulder and throws open the door to the cold morning air. It's never a dull sight, to be met with the view of the ocean in the distance, the lapping waves of icy blue and the contrast of the ancient buildings like the abbey and the thatched cottages that jut out from the sloped hill of the village always making Sansa feel like she's in some sort of fairy tale. It's a small town that doesn't hold much excitement except for the annual flower show and the markets on Sundays, and of course the school dances. It's quaint and it's quiet, the only rivalry the one between the students of Winterfell Community and Kings Landing Academy that rests atop the hill in all its privately funded glory. 

The village is a pretty sight to witness at eight in the morning, the sleepy sun shining down and the lazy sea in the distance. But Sansa's favourite sight awaits her down the brown pathway, his lean frame resting against the front pillars of her gates and his raven black curls blowing with the breeze.

"Hey, loser!" Sansa sings as she skips down the pathway, beaming when Jon turns towards her with one of those addictive grins. 

"Hey, Red" he calls to her as he stands up straight, a hand pushing his curls from his face. Her smile only grows wider at the use of her life long nickname. Only Jon gets to call her that. If anyone else tried it'd just feel wrong. She isn't by his side two seconds before she decides to lightly punch his arm, a surprised frown appearing on his pouting face. 

"What the hell was that for?" there's no real hurt in his voice, but his eyebrows are scrunched together in confusion. 

" _That_ is for keeping me up all last night on the phone, Snow! Don't be surprised if I fall asleep in math today" she tells him, a knowing smirk on his face at the mention of her reason behind punching him. 

"What's new? You're always falling asleep in math" he laughs when she bumps her hip into his, sending him skidding across the pavement. 

"So we still on for shopping for the dance this weekend?" Sansa asks him, fiddling with the end of her school tie. There's a certain shift in him then that would be entirely unnoticeable to anyone else, but Sansa can pick up on it straight away. She looks at him then with her Tully colored eyes, noticing the creeping blush on his cheeks and how he pulls at his already loose collar. It's a series of behaviours he normally displays whenever she brings up the dance or anything to do with it, and it's a change in him that has come all of a sudden. Jon would normally be excited for a night of sneaking booze right under their parents noses and loud venues filled with pretty girls. Both he and Robb enjoyed the school dances for that reason alone, and Sansa can not fathom why he all of a sudden hates broaching the subject. 

"If you want to" Jon tells her, coughing at the end when his voice gets nervously rough but his eyes hold steady on hers. It's almost like he's searching her for an answer, rather than the other way around, as if he's checking to see that she still wants to go with him. 

"Of course I want to, you loser" another nudge of her hip to his and he's back to smiling as normal, dramatically hopping off the pavement and onto the road as he tries to get away from her "I'm sorted we just need you to get a suit, and a matching tie to my dress" 

"Hold on a minute Sans" Jon tells her, one hand pushing a stray curl from his eyes and the other held up in some sort of a warning "I am not wearing a pink tie!" 

"Jon, please don't be difficult" Sansa is so like her mother when she uses her exasperated voice, and Jon can't help but comically raise an eyebrow at her; a gesture she doesn't see since she's so preoccupied with rolling those Tully blue eyes of hers upwards. She has a habit of doing it so often that it's become a permanent fixture to her personality, and it's one she was constantly scolded over when she was little. Jon remembers telling her that her eyes were surely to roll out of her head if she kept the habit up. Well at least he thought that when he was six. But no matter how annoyed she looks right now- and Sansa is always annoyed whenever Jon doesn't go along with her compulsively organised plans- he can't help but notice how pretty she looks. 

He's been noticing it half his life, maybe his whole life to be specific, but one can not deny the fact that Sansa Stark is probably the most beautiful girl in Yorkshire. He can't help but stare at the way the sun makes her hair look like fire when it catches in it, or how porcelain looking her skin is, as if one kiss to her cheek would shatter her entirely. Jon isn't supposed to notice how well her school uniform fits her or how her skirt is a little shorter than it was last year since she's taller now. He certainly isn't supposed to feel his heart pound when she leans in close to him and he can smell the perfume coming off her clothes and skin. Certainly not. Epspecially not when she's your best friend. 

"Jon? Hello? Jon have you been listening to anything I've said?" Sansa's tone is her mothers again, short and cramped with heavy sighs and Jon is snapped back to the present. 

"Um....no?" it almost sounds like he's unsure when he knows positively that he hadn't been listening to her speech about how she wants to be crowned best dressed at their graduation dance and how all the posh boys from Kings Landing Academy will be there too. He definitely didn't hear that part. 

"You're impossible, do you know that?" she's the only person who looks pretty when they pout. When he does it he looks like a puppy that's been left outside all day or whenever Sansa's little sister does it she just looks murderous "this is our _last_ school dance Jon! Our last one, and I want you to take it seriously. Pink is a manly colour, Jon"

"Alright you maniac! I'll wear the damn pink tie" he grumbles, watching as her face turns from a crumpled frown to one of the brightest smiles he's ever seen. 

"Thank you! Have I ever told you that I love you?" Sansa's words bite at him, deep gashes appearing in his heart. She says them so flippantly, so casually that it stings him worse than it should. _I love you's_ are thrown so openly from her mouth that it almost irritates Jon sometimes. They're shouted from across streets whenever she says goodbye to him, they're spoken loudly on the other end of the telephone or when he brings her chocolate when she's sick in bed. It's the same way she says _I love you_ to her father when he says it and the same way she says it to Robb. 

She's his best friend he knows that, and he loves her like a best friend should. But deep down there is a wish inside of him that hopes one day she'll say _I love you_ in a different way.

"Yeah, you've told me" Jon sighs heavily while pulling at his white school shirt and he decides to change the subject "so we still on for this afternoon? You and me at Poppy's right?" 

His hopeful look falters on his face when Sansa stops suddenly in the middle of the pavement with wide eyes and a hand clapped over her forehead. Jon knows from her expression and the look of absolute surprise on her face, that she has forgotten their after school plans. It floors him completely- the fact that she has forgotten- and he stops walking too, standing in front of her and letting his eyes rake over every inch of her face. Poppy's is probably the most cramped and mismatched furnished coffee shop in the whole of England, but it's a place both he and Sansa go every Monday afternoon, to drink tea and stress over algebra homework. 

"Oh Jon, I completely forgot" she tells him, and he can't help but furrow his dark brows. 

" _Forgot_? Do you suddenly have early onset dementia and you haven't told me? How did you _forget_? We've been going there every Monday for at least six years now" Jon can't help the irritation that slowly trickles into his voice, and he knows she's not joking with him. He has a slowly sneaking suspicion that her lack of memory has something to do with the ridiculous time she's been spending organising this fiasco of a dance. He can feel his jaw set tightly when he remembers _who_ she's been organising this dance with. One of those preppy boys from King's Landing that he'd rather not think about. 

"Oh Jon, I'm so sorry. I planned to meet with Harry today after school. We have to organise last minute things for the dance" she tells him with a regretful sigh, and even though he's been expecting to hear it, it still hurts him slightly to know she's blown her best friend off for _Harry Hardyng_. Most of the time boys like Harry and Joffrey are avoidable since they go to school on the top of the hill and only hang around the town at weekends, and even then Jon hardly sees them. But every school dance Winterfell has, the posh kids join them since there is so little of them in their private school. It's an irritating thought that never fails to annoy Jon when the time comes around for a dance, and he finds it grates on his nerves even now. 

"Why must you do it with _Harry_?" he grinds his teeth, trying his hardest not to let every ounce of anger drip into his tone. 

"I'm prefect of our year and Harry's prefect at his school. It's up to us, and besides we can go to Poppy's tomorrow, yeah?" Sansa asks him, stepping a little closer to him and looking at him with those blue eyes that the sun is cutting through. 

"Yeah Sans, whatever" his words are harsher than he intended them, and her face falls the moment they leave his mouth. But he can't take it back, and he really doesn't want to. 

"Hey!" she catches his arm as he once again begins walking along the cobbled pavement, but she skips in front of him while pulling him back and there's nowhere he can go; his feet stand frozen to the ground when she presses herself close to him "are you..... _jealous_?" 

Jon can feel it- the heat that creeps up his face when she speaks the key word that is controlling him now. _Jealous_. He is undeniably fuming with jealousy but he's trying his hardest not to let it show and by the way her eyes scan his face he can tell it's not working. He hates that she gushes about Harry to Arya and to Margaery Tyrell, their giggles always carrying to him at lunch time or whenever he hangs out in Robb's room and they sit in the kitchen like a flock of flustered hens. He despairs when she says his name, with a dreamy sigh at the end and a twinkle in her eyes that is undeniable infatuation. Both he and Robb, and even Theon, have hated Harry since preschool and Jon detests him almost as much as he hates Joffrey. Both blonde demons had terrorised Jon in the sandpit when they were all too small to even speak properly yet, and even throughout their teenage years they'd throw insults back and forth. Jon remembers giving Harry a black eye when they were twelve because he made fun of Sansa's Scooby Doo lunch box. He can't believe that sort of a man is who she now blushes over the mention of. 

"I am not jealous!" it's a lie and it tastes like one on his tongue "I'm just annoyed my plans have been mixed up, that's all" 

"Oh Jon, don't act like a spoiled child. We'll go tomorrow, it's no big deal" Sansa says with a furrowed brow and a jutted out lip, a sure sign she's annoyed at his very jealous behaviour. _No big deal._ The words bristle Jon more than they should, and his dark eyes narrow at her. 

"Exactly, it's no big deal" he tells her indifferently with a shrug of his shoulders as he begins to walk towards the school that is looming in the distance "and besides it's actually quite convenient for me"

"Convenient?" Sansa asks him, her eyes staring hard at Winterfell Community School and nowhere else. Her arms are folded now and it's clear when Jon sneaks a peek at her that she's chewing the inside of her cheek. 

"Yeah, because Valerie's been wanting me to take her there for ages now" Jon's words are bitter, almost as bitter as the lemon cakes Sansa so fondly eats. Her breathing becomes heavy at the mention of the leggy blonde that Jon ogles around the hallways of school. Valerie is the type of girl that is _everyone's_ type, someone who Sansa has tried to get along with most of her life but a task she has failed miserably at each and every time she hears Jon sigh when she walks by. 

" _Valerie_?" the word is poison, and Sansa swallows harshly after it leaves her mouth. 

"She wants me to help her with her English paper, and apparently she told Robb she has the hots for me" his tone is light but with a hint of spite hidden in it, and he almost hopes he annoys her with the mention of Valerie since she's irritated him with the mere thought of Harry.  

"Oh please, of course Valerie has the hots for you. You're the only guy in our year who hasn't slept with her yet. Even Robb shagged her last year" she doesn't mean to sound condescending but it comes out that way and Jon scoffs loudly. 

"So you're saying that's the only reason she likes me?" Jon implies with a glare towards her and she shuffles a little as she tightens her arms around herself. 

"Maybe. You're the only guy in our year that's still a virgin, maybe she's trying to break a record" Sansa hates the person she becomes when she's jealous but she can't help it when it comes to Jon since she's quite territorial. Jon is her best friend and no one else's, and no girl, especially Val, is going to come between them.

"Thanks Red, real nice" he cuts at her, his eyes narrowed and his jaw tight "maybe I'll take her to Poppy's today and find out"

She stops dead then, in the looming and colossal shade of their public school, it's Victorian style front gazing down at them and blocking out the early morning sun. She can see their whole year congregate on the grass by the oak tree that the art department carved a face into last year for some religious statement, and her heart sinks when she sees a blonde beauty eyeing them where they stand. _Valerie_. Just the sight of her makes Sansa fume. Her eyes wander back to Jon then and his are hard on hers. He's always so difficult to read, and Sansa looks at every inch of his handsome face, her mind wondering over the possibilites as to why he's always so quick with his mood. 

She wishes that he'd just tell her because deep down she knows what he's thinking, what his heart is thinking, because it's the exact same thing hers is doing. But it's just so hard to admit that she doesn't want him to take Val on a date because she's jealous of her with him.

"You're serious aren't you? You're going to take her there after school?" Sansa inquires exasperatedly, her eyes searching the depths of his dark ones.

"Yeah I am" Jon's jaw is set tightly and she wishes for a split second that she could punch it, but she balls her fists at her sides.

"But that's our place" she whispers to him with a voice full of hurt and she can see he's dying to drop his facade. But he doesn't and that hurts even more.

"Yeah well you should've thought about that before you blew me off for Harry Hardyng"

"Oh don't be so petty! Just because I'm hanging out with someone else doesn't mean you have to be spiteful and hang out with _her_ " Sansa says, pointing in the direction of where Val sits on the grass with her long legs on show while twirling her hair and making googly eyes at their history professor Mr Lannister.

" _Petty_? For doing what? Wanting to hang out with a pretty girl? For actually _wanting_ to take a girl on a date and maybe get a girlfriend finally? You know Val is actually really nice and at least recognises me for being someone other than _Sansa Stark's best friend._ And you know she told Robb she wanted to ask me to the dance" Jon fumes angrily, his black eyebrows drooped in annoyance and his eyes flashing with something that makes Sansa's heart race.

"Oh so that's what this is all about! This is why you put off going shopping with me for so long, it's why you won't coordinate with me! It's because you want to go with _her_ , isn't it!" Sansa doesn't ask anything as a question because she knows she's right. Her voice has risen octaves higher and she can see Arya and Gendry looking at her from where they're standing at the bike shed.

"I'm taking _you_! Or have you forgotten that as well? I can't very well take another girl and leave you without a date, now can I?" Jon tells her, his voice rising now too and it's rough and older sounding than normal.

"Take her if it means that much to you! Don't think you're doing me a favour because Harry's already asked me!" she hadn't meant to tell him, but the anger in her is making words come out of her mouth without any logic behind them. 

Sansa never wanted to tell Jon how Harry had asked her two weeks ago while they were holed up in the town library, ringing and emailing different venues for the dance. She'd blown him off of course, telling him she already had a date but that very date now stands before her with a look of pure disgust on his face. 

"So this is pretty convenient for you then?" Jon angles his body towards hers, his voice quieter than it had been before but it's still full of undeniable hurt. Sansa wants to feel regretful for saying it, for bringing Harry up again, but she doesn't let herself. Instead she takes a deep breath as she once again looks over at Val, feeling her heart shatter in her chest as she does, and let's herself jut her chin in the air. 

"Yeah. It is" she says through a clenched jaw and flared nostrils, her eyes never leaving his face. He looks at her then for a moment and its almost like he wants to smile or grab her against his chest and tell her that he doesn't want to take Val to the dance but only wants _her_ , _Sansa_ , his _best friend_ in the entire world. But he doesn't, and his next words kill her. 

"Fine then. You go with Harry and I'll go with Val"

"Fine" Sansa tells Jon defiantly, trying to bristle off the hurt shes feeling as she turns around and walks away from him, leaving him standing there all alone with a heavy heart and without his best friend. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this will be slightly based off of one of my favorite films Love, Rosie but I'll be changing a few plot points along the way. Enjoy!


	3. forgiveness & denial

**_two weeks later_ **

"Have you talked to him yet?"

The voice seems far away and out of reach, but the gentle shake to her shoulder that follows brings her back to the surface of the present. Margaery's large doe eyes are peering into hers like she's trying to read the blankness that engulfs them but Sansa leans away from her then and shifts on the bench- her eyes going anywhere but the face of her best girl friend. She knows exactly who she's talking of though, and the mere thought of him makes her lungs feel like they're full of freezing water.

"No. I haven't" Sansa answers cuttingly, her tone sharp and full of the desire to end the current conversation. But Margaery being Margaery doesn't relent. She leans closer to Sansa and flickers her eyes over to the large oak tree in the school garden that Sansa knows a large group of teenagers sit under. She tries not to think of what she had witnessed as she had made her way to her usual lunch bench (her eyes had fallen on a certain blonde beauty and dark haired heart throb that had been sucking the face off of each other). She clenches her hand around her water bottle now as she thinks of it.

"Maybe you should -"

"If you say apologise I will slap you, Marg. I promise you I will" Sansa all but growls at her, those sharp blue eyes flickering to the warm brown ones that now look back at her with panic.

"I was just going to say talk to him, Sans. It can't hurt, can it?" the brunette explains with a sheepish shrug, occupying her mouth by chewing the end of a carrot stick. Sansa just sighs heavily and puts her freckled cheek into the palm of her hand, and she finds she can no longer stop her blue eyes from wandering to the tree that _he_ sits under with _her_. _Jon_ _Snow_. A wave of sadness washes over her then and it almost threatens to stop her heart, the aching absence of Jon now more prominent than ever. It had been almost two whole weeks since she'd talked to Jon and it was slowly killing her inside. The longest they had ever gone without talking to each other was four days- and that was only because Jon had once gone to France on holiday and had no way of contacting her. Her heart feels heavy where it beats in her chest and the breath that she releases comes out shaky and broken.

He looks genuinely happy- where he sits with his back to the tree and one arm slung around the thin shoulders of Val, both of them laughing at some joke or other Theon must have cracked. Just like that Jon has been submersed in the life of the popular crowd now that he has blown off Sansa- the prim and proper school prefect for Val, who has slept with almost all of the male school population. Jon is just another one of those boys who thinks through their trousers and not their heads when it comes to the busty blonde.

Sansa just sincerely hopes he hasn't slept with her yet.

"I am not talking to him until he talks to me first. And that is final" Sansa fumes as she turned back around- not content to sit there any longer and witness Jon lean ever closer to Valerie.

"But you know how stubborn Jon is" Margaery offers gently, scooting closer to her and trying her best to lull Sansa into a bubble of gentleness, but the fiery red head is having none of it.

"Oh sod his stubbornness!" she all but shouts, her dark eyebrows furrowing angrily "what about mine? I can be stubborn too, you know. And not for the life of me will I apologise. Jon was the one who decided to bring that wretched girl to _our_ place, when it should have been him and I. It's not my fault that Jon got jealous because I was spending time with Harrold. At least I wasn't sucking his face every two seconds"

"Sans, are you sure this isn't about something else?" Margaery asks her with an apprehensive voice; her fingers fidgeting with the end of her school skirt "you sure you're not just jealous that Jon is spending time with another girl? Because I think you may have feelings for him"

Her water bottle sits idle on her open lips as she stares at Margaery with wide eyes- blue meeting brown in a haze of shock. It takes her a good few seconds to regain the composure that was so flimsily cast to the wind once the mention of having _feelings_ for Jon was brought up. She can feel the blush that creeps along her face but tries ever so hard not to let Margaery know she's been affected by the topic. She doesn't have any sort of feelings for Jon. Of course she doesn't. Not at all.

"I am not in love with Jon! Are you daft? He's like a brother to me" she finds the last few words hard to swallow, but she rolls her eyes nonchalantly and acts aloof to the idea. But Margaery, who is all sweet but knowing doesn't buy it.

"Then why all this ridiculousness? You and Jon have been inseparable since we were all babies. He's been your best friend for years, Sansa. Now all of a sudden you're not talking to him because of a girl he's dating? I call bullshit" her friend tells her, those brown eyes of hers seeming lighter than usual "you don't like Val, fair enough neither do I. But I've dated plenty of idiots you didn't like but you still talked to me. It's different with Jon, Sansa admit it. You're jealous because you want that to be _you_ and not _her_ "

"You really have a talent for make believe, Marg" Sansa glares, tight lipped and narrow eyed but she hides her trembling hands under the table. She won't let Margaery see how her words have impacted her. _Are they true?_ She can't help but think on them, but finds no answer in her head. Jon was always just Jon. Always there for her and always a big part of her life. Perhaps it's just because she misses him greatly that she's allowing for these ridiculous notions to take root in her mind, but she does not wish to think on them any longer.

"I have to go, Marg. I'll be late for Drama I'll see you later" and with that Sansa is gone, hurrying across the school yard with a pounding head and a heavy heart- completely unaware that a pair of black eyes watches her from under a tree; their heart just as heavy.

* * *

It's odd, Sansa thinks as she lies on the grainy sand of the Yorkshire beach, that the stars seem duller than usual without your favourite person by your side.

She'd climbed out of her bedroom window- for the thousandth time in her life-after the household had fallen asleep and had made the short trek down to Naerys Cove. The golden strip of about a half a mile is the greatest attraction during the summertime, but the sandy expanse is a place Jon and Sansa use all year round. When Jon was eight he had been given a telescope for Christmas- he had been into astrology then- and had dragged Sansa down one late evening to star gaze using his newest contraption. It had started then and had never really stopped- their late night star watching excursions becoming just another tradition within their friendship.

 _Not anymore,_ she thinks with a heavy sigh. It seemed that ever since Val had come into the picture that all their traditions were passing to her. She had seen Jon and that wretched chit holding hands and walking towards the cove after school. _Had he really brought her here?_  She had scowled all the way home and had sighed so many times even Robb had looked concerned for her. But if Margaery was smart, which Sansa knew she was, then she had known better than to divulge anything to Sansa's brother. Sansa knew Marg's undying affection for the oldest Stark sometimes made her over share- but thankfully this time Robb looked utterly clueless as to why Sansa was huffing every chance she got.

She lets her eyes close now and the dull stars above her falter to nothingness as she shuts them off. She wishes to just lie here and listen to the calm rush of the waves against the rocky shore. It is peaceful here- this little corner of the world seeming like her own place and no one else's. The water is lapping against the jutting rocks that stick out of the sea like jagged teeth, and the soft spray of the waves that settle near the sand sounds like the softest whisper in the wind. If she listens closely it's almost like she can hear her name.

 _Sansa. Sansa._ The sea seems to whisper it to her and - _it sounds like Jon_?

"Sansa?" she hears, the rough tone louder this time and she flings her eyes open as she sits up abruptly. Her wide blue eyes scan the dark and her thumping heart almost makes her tremble with fear where she sits but it calms when the dark figure moves into the light of the moon. She huffs indignantly as she sees him, turning her head away. So it _was_ Jon.

"Sansa" it's a greeting this time more than a question, and the casual way in which he says her name irritates her greatly. He should be singing her name and begging-while on his knees-for forgiveness. _How dare he stroll here and expect her to talk to him! How dare he!_

"For what do I owe this pleasure, Jon?" she grits her teeth, still refusing to let those fierce blue eyes of hers rest on that stupidly handsome face.

"Oh come on Red, don't be like that" he almost sounds like he's about to cry with his voice all shaky and that sorry sniffle at the end. She almost turns her head to him. _Almost_. She hears a heavy sigh beside her and before she can pull it away Jon has grabbed the edge of the great tartan blanket that has been wrapped around her to ward off the chill.

"Like what, Jon? Pissed at you? Angry even? Because last time I checked it was alright to be pissed for being shoved off" she tugs the blanket away from him then, but he's holding it with his two hands and has wrapped it around his legs. She huffs stubbornly then and tries to angle her body away from him, but despite the fact she wants to be rid of him she can't deny that she's warmer now that he's here.

"Shoved off?" he sighs exasperatedly-a little angry even as he eyes her from where he sits "listen Sansa I didn't come here to fight with you -"

"Then why did you come here? If you wanted to sit here and look at the stars you should have brought Val" she's up then, dusting off the sticking sand that has clung to the material of her sweatpants. She roughly tugs the blanket from Jon's arms and folds it up in a fit of temper, and without looking back at him she begins to stomp across the sandy plain of Naerys Cove.

He follows her- of course.

"Hey wait!" Jon tells her, pulling her by the arm to look at him. His floppy dark hair is over one eye, and Sansa can not deny that in the silvery light of the moon he looks even more handsome than ever. She shoves the thought from her mind since she should not be consumed by the thought that his eyes look lighter now and how his chiselled face is illuminated by the stars.

"What, Jon?" she pinches the bridge of her nose tightly and squeezes her eyes shut; the irritation and impatience stifling her.

"Look, Margaery told me I should talk to you" Jon explains softly, eyes locking with Sansa's once she snaps them open. Just when she had thought Marg had kept her confidence. _Damn her._

"Margaery? What has she told you?" she all but bites out, the conversation she had had earlier with her friend now replaying in her mind. _I am not in love with Jon._

"Nothing" Jon tells her slowly, brow furrowing heavily "she just told me that you and I needed to air out our differences"

" _Air out our differences_? Val you mean" Sansa scoffs, holding the blanket tightly to her chest and looking anywhere but his face.

"She's not a bad person Sans. Maybe if you'd just give her a chance" Jon's voice is ever so soft, and it almost makes Sansa relax. But not quite, not at Jon's next words "after all she is my girlfriend, and I'd like you to be friends with her"

"Your _girlfriend_?" it feels like a kick to the stomach, and she's utterly winded when she speaks. It hurts right where her heart beats, and Margaery's words from earlier echo in her head. _I think you may have feelings for him._ It seems undeniable now when she feels so heartbroken over the fact that Jon has another girl in his life. _I thought I was his girl,_ she thinks to herself, feeling her bottom lip tremble.

"We made it official last week. Maybe if you had of talked to me you would have found out" he smiles a little, trying to make the air lighter. But how can he when all the air is gone from the world? She can't breathe where she stands, and the dark world sways a little.

"Fuck" she lets out lowly, not realising that she'd said it out loud until Jon has taken her arms in his and steadied her.

"Hey, Red, you alright?" he asks her- tone full of genuine concern which just makes it worse- but she wriggles from his grasp.

"I'm fine" she mumbles but he steps in front of her.

"You don't look so good Sansa maybe you should -"

"I said I'm fine Jon!" she lets out in a rush, her tone quick and bitter. She regrets it instantly when she sees his face fall, those deep dark eyes swallowing her blue ones in a sorry hold.

She can't remember now how they'd fallen out so quickly, or how Val had all of a sudden become a permanent fixture to Jon's life and not some fleeting classroom crush. They were supposed to be going to the dance _together_ , and in the matter of a few furious seconds they had agreed to go with other people. It hadn't supposed to turn out this way. It was supposed to be Jon she was coordinating with and not Harry. She didn't even really like Harry. He was tall and blonde and had one of those faces that you'd see on the cover of Vogue but he wasn't Jon. He wasn't dark and handsome and brooding. He didn't sneak out windows with her at midnight and gaze at the stars on the beach. Harry didn't knock on Sansa's door and bring her chocolate and magazines when she was sick. Harry didn't call her Red, or kiss her forehead when she was upset. That was all Jon. And now he was someone else's.

"Where did all this come from? You're angry about Val, I get it. But do you really hate her that much to stop talking to _me_? Your _best friend_ , Sansa" Jon almost pleads with her, strong hands taking her shoulders.

 _I think you may have feelings for him_. She hears the words again, and looks towards the sea that is just a blur of deep blue and midnight black since it is like the waves whisper them to her.

 _I **am** angry_ , she wants to tell him, _and jealous and heartbroken, and half in love with you._

"Don't just blame me, Jon. You hated the fact that I was hanging out with Harry, and you were the one who wanted to be and I quote _someone other than Sansa Stark's best friend_. Well congratulations you're now Val's boyfriend instead" she feigns delight by smiling widely but her eyes are narrowed on his.

"Fine I was annoyed you were with Harry, but only because he's so awful. You blew me off for him, Sansa! What was I supposed to do? Be delighted that you forgot about going to Poppy's to be with him instead?" Jon asks her with his hands thrown up in defeat.

"At least I didn't bring him there. To _our place_! You brought Val there, do you think I was delighted about that? We've been going there since we were kids" Sansa fumes, those trembling hands of hers balling into fists in the soft tartan of her blanket "I suppose you've brought her here too, haven't you?"

He looks at her then with a look in his eyes that makes her want to throw her arms around him- a softness hidden behind the large darkness of them and she finds herself taking a step towards him.

"Here? I'd never bring any other girl here" he all but whispers to her " _this_ is our place, Red. No one else's"

She can accept it then- the fact that he has a girlfriend- and somehow the way he has spoken to her makes her feel as if it isn't so bad. She knows then as she stands there under the moon, on the sand of the beach, _their_ beach, that he doesn't speak like that with Val. That soft side of Jon Snow is reserved for Sansa and Sansa alone, and under the silvery glow of the night she almost makes herself believe that he's still wholeheartedly hers. Perhaps he isn't any longer, and maybe there will come a day when no part of him belongs to her, but for now she'll have him any way. No matter how much it hurts seeing him kiss another girl.

"You're really taking her to the dance?" Sansa asks him forlornly and he nods; his shoulders and head dropping a little in shame. He regrets the fact he's no longer escorting Sansa- and it's another consolation she accepts.

"And you're really taking Harry" Jon's words are a statement, a hidden sort of fury in his words and she bristles a little as she stands up straighter.

"Only because my first date was a git" she tells him with a sniff, and her lips twitch at the sides when Jon smiles.

"I was a git, wasn't I?" he asks her with a comical raise to his eyebrow and she nods fiercely "I should never have asked another girl. I'm sorry"

"You're forgiven" Sansa smiles at him, her heart skipping a beat when he pushes a hand through his thick mop of curls "but only because I was a git too. I got annoyed that we weren't hanging out as much. I thought you didn't want to be my best friend anymore"

"I'll only stop being your best friend if you don't want me anymore" Jon declares truthfully and even in the dark she can feel his gaze- powerful and honest.

"I'll always want you Jon" her words come out in a whisper, but she knows he heard them. He can take them in any way he wants, because Sansa is sure she herself doesn't even realise the truth behind them. Not really anyway. His hands come to hers gently where they have laid balled up in the green and red blanket, and his long fingers untangle hers from the material that she has clung to the entirety of their conversation.

"What do you say?" he asks her, taking the tartan from her and laying it on the ground "want to count them with me?"

She lays with him then under the cover of the stars, and while Jon is naming the constellations she pretends that they're the only two people in the world. Like she used to do when they would lie here and complain about everything that was going on in their lives. It's an easy thing to do, to pretend like he is the only other person besides her that matters because it's the raw truth that she lets be buried deep within herself. She's forgiven him for whatever fickle thing he had done, and he had forgiven her for her stubbornness and childishness. But it doesn't matter any longer because she's missed him too much. He's her best friend, and it's all she cares about. Jon Snow is all she cares about.

**_I think you may have feelings for him._ **

_I think you're right Marg,_ she thinks inside her head, _I think I do._

 

 

 


	4. just one dance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a while since I updated this story so please forgive me! enjoy x

The stars that are stuck to Sansa's ceiling are dimming with age, but she's never once wished to take them down. Her dad had stuck them up for her when she was eight and had gone through a phase of having dreams that haunted her even in daylight. She doesn't have nightmares much anymore, but on nights like these- when it's too cold and wet to venture down to the beach she lies here instead. They don't glow so bright anymore but still she turns the light off, lying on her patchwork quilt. 

"I got my application forms for uni today" Jon's voice sounds from beside her- it sounds even rougher in the dark. He holds a small flashlight in his hands that he flickers on and off, the stars above them dimming and brightening with one flick of his finger. 

"Yeah me too" Sansa sighs, her arms tightening around the cushion she holds to her chest. College had been the only thing she could think of for years, and now that the time has come to apply she feels terrified. It had long been a dream of her and Jon's to study abroad. New York had been their calling. The thick folder of application forms hiss at her from where she had shoved them under her bed. Was she able for university? In New York no less? Was she smart enough? 

Of course she was smart enough, she had the best grades in her entire year and had never gotten a grade lower than a B. But nevertheless the pressure was insurmountable. What if she didn't get in and was left to attend community college with all the people who couldn't be bothered? 

"What are we going to do?" Jon asks her, flickering the flashlight on again and towards her face. She throws a hand up to her eyes and uses the other one to pinch him with. His chuckle somehow ends the nerves that were swarming in her stomach. She's glad they're talking again, and that he can be here with her and not with anyone else. 

"About what?" Sansa asks him, blue eyes searching for his dark ones in the dim light.

"About college, dumbass" another pinch to his side but he just edges himself closer to her. He smells of pinewood and cinammon, and something so familiar that comforts Sansa no matter what "are we applying to Columbia for a year?" 

"I'm scared Jon. What if we don't get in? Then what?" she worries aloud, her voice shaking just a little. She can feel his side press against hers as he wiggles himself even closer to her on the bed. Her heart races in her chest and she blushes at the thought that he might be able to hear it. 

"It won't be the only place we'll apply to Sansa. There's colleges here we can go to, don't be worrying. And I thought you always wanted us to go to college together? Live in a tiny bedsit and live on coffee and noodles" he laughs just a little to lighten her mood, and she manages to smile in the dark. 

"Yeah I want that. Just me and you" she adds with emphasis, hoping he understands she wants no one else to trail behind. Val comes to mind at that moment. How selfish is she? She wants him all to herself but when they're here lying next to each other in the dark she can't tell him how she feels. Is she certain he feels something for her too? Maybe he doesn't have any feelings for her and never did. But then again she had thought she had no feelings for him, and now here she lies beside him with a beating heart and hands that wish to grab him. 

"Just me and you. Me learning to protect people with the law and you doing.....what was it you wanted to do again?" he teases her with a wide grin and she rolls her blue eyes at him. She doesn't know how captivating she looks in the dim light, with the moon shining through her window and making her hair look scarlet. Perhaps she does know, and that is why she's never given her heart to the likes of Jon. He's nothing compared to Harry Hardyng or Joffrey Baratheon. He looks away from her then, all teasing light gone from his eyes but she doesn't see. 

"Art history" Sansa tells him like it's the first time she's told him. He's heard it many times before though. Ever since they had gone on a field trip to the art museum in the city she had been captivated by sculpture and impressionism. They'd only been thirteen at the time and while Sansa had wandered around the museum with a bright smile and a Van Gogh pamphlet he had only stared at her. She was the only piece of art he'd ever wish to appreciate. He was only a spectator though, and she was the masterpiece. 

"We'll write the applications together, yeah? If we don't get into Columbia's transfer programme for the year then stuff it. We'll get in somewhere else, okay? No worrying" Jon tells her and she nods with a half hearted smile. 

"No worrying" Sansa repeats, her voice drowned out by the insistent ringing of Jon's phone. She watches as his eyes scan the name on the screen and her heart sinks when she sees that tell tale perk of his lips. She knows it's Val even before he answers. She listens to him talk to her, and hates that he calls her _babe_. It annoys her more than it should. His lips twitch into a smile every now and then and Sansa's eyes watch them captivatingly as he talks, yet they narrow when he arises from the bed and walks to her shut window, his body angled in a way that allows her to guess he does not wish for her to overhear any of the conversation. 

"Now?" Sansa hears Jon titter, his voice that of a love sick teenage boy and it makes Sansa's stomach turn. God she hated Val. 

"Okay, I'll be over in ten" he hangs up the phone after a sickening goodbye where he called her babe yet again, and Sansa watches him from her position on the bed with narrowed eyes. He turns ever so slowly then, a stupid smile on his face that reminds her all too well of the one Robb wears whenever he's around Margaery.  

"You're leaving" it's not a question, and Jon knows it wasn't offered as one as he nods. She hates how he looks sorry for leaving her when she knows he's not. How could he be sorry to leave her when he's running off to be with a girl like Val? 

"Sorry Red" Jon smiles at her and she just weakly smiles back. 

"It's alright. I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?" she holds the cushion to her chest tighter as he leans over and quickly kisses the top of her head. _He does love me,_ she thinks, _but not like that. Not like the way I think I might love him._  

"Yeah, for sure. Library tomorrow after lunch? Gotta get those applications done" his grin is infectious, and Sansa finds she really can not help herself as she copies it. His smile does not falter as he turns away from her and goes to the door- but her smile dies away once he is gone and she is left alone. 

* * *

The cloud of smoke that rests above Sansa's head is toxic and threatens to choke her in a second. She swats a huge gust of it from her face with a hand, watching as the white cloud evaporates in thin wisps. 

"Arya stop blowing your toxic tobbaco in my face" Sansa grimaces but her small framed sister just leans back into her boyfriends chest and exhales yet another puff of smoke. Sansa is at least grateful she blows it upright instead of at her. 

She has tried all of the morning to write her history paper for her end of year grade, but it has proven to be almost impossible. She had thought sitting under the large oak on the village green outside the church might help. A bit of fresh air, she had told herself, would get her studious juices flowing. But she hadn't contemplated on her sister, Gendry and Margaery to be lying under it. She had rolled her eyes as she had approached and saw how Marg had waved her over. She couldn't ignore them then, and instead had sat with them. She had now sat with them for two hours, and nothing productive had come of it. 

"I give up" she groans, pushing her large history folder off her lap and shoving it onto the manicured village lawn. She can not possibly squeeze another word out on the topic of political propoganda. 

"I gave up on my essay the other night too" Margaery tells her as she leans against the bark of the oak tree "I can't wait for graduation, this stress of exams is definitely going to kill me" 

"At least we have the dance on Friday" Sansa has said the same words to herself every time she has felt like losing it over her impending exams and end of year papers. It's almost like a mantra now. She just hopes the senior dance is everything she is hoping it will be. It's a night that she knows she'll remember for the rest of her life. 

"At least we have that" Margaery sighs, leaning forward and taking Arya's extended cigarette between her fingers. She takes a grateful puff from it and Sansa just rolls her eyes, wishing she could tell Marg that Robb hates smokers. 

"Don't look now" Gendry says under his breath- his stormy eyes looking over his girlfriend's head and past Sansa's shoulder "but Val and Jon are over there" 

Sansa finds it tiring that all her friends feel the need to warn her whenever Jon and Val are together and nearby. It is like they are trying to spare her the pain of having to see them holding hands or kissing. She despises how transparent she is to everyone. Suddenly the abandoned history folder that lies on the cut grass is the most interesting thing in the world and she picks it up in trembling hands. 

Her and Jon are on good terms now- back to the way they were before- but she can't help but feel horible each and every time he and his girlfriend are near. _Jealousy is an awful thing_ , her mother used to tell her when she would come crying over the girls in her class making fun of her ginger hair or her prefect badge. She hadn't believed that jealousy would be _so_ terrible. She could almost taste it every time Val would swing her arms around Jon and kiss him in the school hallways. 

"Val told me in P.E that her and Jon did the deed" Arya giggles with a snort at the end; a wispy cloud of smoke billowing from her plump lips as she does. Sansa immediately looks up at her laughing sister and can feel Margaery's eyes on her. Margaery is perhaps the only person who truly _sees_ the effect Jon has on Sansa. Arya does not know this and Sansa knows her statement had not been voiced with cruel intentions or the desire to hurt her sister. Arya thinks that Sansa is jealous only because Jon does not spend as much time with Sansa anymore, and does not know that she wants to be with Jon in a completely different way. 

"Like _did_ _it_ did it" Sansa asks with a scrunched up brow. It hurts her more than it should to know Jon has given his virginity to a girl like Val. Sansa's own virginity is still intact and she had always wished for someone gentle to take it. Perhaps she had thought of Jon being that person many times over her teenage years, but each time she had thought it she felt as if the image was unattainable. She had thought then, like she thinks now, that she does not have any feelings of that nature towards Jon. 

"Apparently her parents are out of town and Jon came to hers last night. But that's ridiculous because Jon stayed in ours last night" Arya rolls her eyes but Sansa bristles where she sits, feeling her heart plummet in her chest. 

"He actually left last night to go to her" her words sound far away, and she can feel three pairs of eyes boring into her. 

"So she wasn't lying?" Arya asks with a shake of her head "what a disappointment. I thought Jon had more class than to shag _that_ " 

So Jon had really taken his and Val's relationship to the next level, Sansa thinks, he must be more serious about her than she had thought. She is surprised then as she sits beneath the tree at how much she hurts thinking of him sharing his body with someone else. It seemed that Jon was outgrowing her in every aspect. He was in a relationship, he was no longer a virgin and she was loveless and so _so_ lonely without him being with her every second. 

"I have to go" she says suddenly, standing up and not looking at her sister as she eyes Sansa with a curious light dancing in her Stark eyes. _Always so transparent_. She thinks this as she gives her apologies to the small company of three and makes her way towards home. 

_At least I have the dance,_ she tells herself over and over again. _At least I have the dance._

* * *

 Harry had picked her up at eight. He had knocked on her door like a perfect gentleman- a wide smile on his face and a bunch of red roses in his hand. As she had opened the door she had wished more than anything that her date had dark curls and a pair of grey eyes. She hadn't felt disappointed though. Harry had been very complimentary of her and had even kissed her cheek in front of her father. At least he was brave, Sansa had thought. He had also worn the pink tie she had picked out for him with the help of her mother. 

They now sit with each other at one of the crowded tables in the hotels function room- champagne and glitter spilled everywhere. Harry had not talked to her much since they arrived and had instead chosen to accompany his chums in and out of the smoking area all night long, returning once again to sit beside her minutes later. She has been aware all night of how Harry's friend Joffrey has stared at her like she is a piece of meat and his piercing gaze has made her conscious of the sweetheart neckline of her blush pink dress. 

"Do you want to dance?" she asks Harry over the loud thump of the catchy dance tune. She has asked him this almost all night long and Sansa is afraid that if he doesn't ask her up soon then the whole prom will be over and she would have spent it sitting on a chair. He looks at her now with those devastatingly beautiful eyes, a wavy blond curl hanging over his face, and shakes his head. 

"Maybe in a minute, babe" he draws out the last word and gives a smirk to his friends, but Sansa just rolls her eyes. God it had sounded weird when he had called her that. She turns glumly to the dance floor where Margaery and Robb swing one another around playfully. Her friend wears a light blue dress printed with golden roses and the colour matches perfectly with Robb's Tully eyes. She allows herself to smile at the thought that tonight they might finally end up together like she has been hoping for since their first year in secondary school. 

She hasn't allowed herself to look at Jon once tonight, or the beautiful girl he had brought on his arm. She can't bare it now that she knows he has been with her in _that_ way. Why was she so annoyed? People had sex all the time, it didn't mean they were going to get married. But what if they did? What if she was forced to attend their wedding and pretend to be happy? She feels sick at the thought of Jon marrying a woman like Val. 

A light tap to her bare shoulder makes her turn around, and for a second she thinks Harry has finally decided to dance with her but when she swivels around in her chair she almost falls off it. 

"Hey Red" Jon is standing there in a tuxedo, looking like one of those timeless movie stars that her Grandma Tully used to swoon over. It doesn't matter then that he came with another girl, all she can see is him. His smile is bright and his eyes twinkle, and her heart picks up in her chest when he extends a hand. 

"Care for a dance, my lady?" he teases and she nods with a giggle as she puts her hand in his. The glasses of champagne and gin she had drank earlier seem to only take affect now as she stands, wobbling a little on her feet. Her ballet length dress is dipped at the back, and she feels Jons warm hand on her skin as he places it there to steady her. She can almost feel Harry's eyes burn into the back of her head as she is lead away, but she doesn't much care to turn around. He had his chance to dance with her. 

As if the gods themselves had decided it, the moment they step onto the dancefloor it changes to a slow song- one Sansa knows from her parents playing it on nights that they've drunk a little too much and decide to dance barefoot on the grass. _Unchained Melody_ , she remembers. Her and Jon had watched the movie Ghost one night, both of them giggling at the sex scenes and at how Sansa blushed profusely over Patrick Swayze. But she remembers that song, how it had played in the movie and how Jon had sang it into her hairbrush, pretending he was some sort of crooner. She wishes now as it plays throughout the function room that she could be back to that night instead. Maybe she would have been brave then and told him something. 

His body is close to hers and she can smell that familiar smell of spice and wood that always clings to his skin- but she can also smell cheap perfume. She wrinkles her nose at that fact. 

"You look beautiful" Jon comments, and Sansa has to look at him to see if he's lying. There are no signs of it on his face- just a small blush that only now begins to darken. His hands on her hips get tighter when she smiles widely at him- her own blush colouring her pale face. 

"I'm not" she shakes her head of perfectly styled curls at him but he only keeps looking at her " _Val_ is beautiful. I'm just Sansa" 

"Exactly, you're Sansa. You're the most beautiful woman in the world" Jon tells her and she is aware then that one of his hands has begun to play with her long red hair that tickles her back. She shivers warmly and takes the tiniest step closer to him. 

"How much have you drank tonight, Jon Snow?" she tries to laugh his comment off- not wanting him to see how nervous he's making her feel. 

"No matter how drunk I am Sansa Stark, you will always be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen" 

Why is he saying this now? Only now when they both have different dates? Despite the fact she is in his arms and he is telling her all of this she can feel a bubble of slight annoyance rise in her chest at his bad timing. If he had of told her she was the most beautiful woman in the world a few months ago she might have taken his face in her hands and kissed his lips. But now she feels herself clenching her hands where they rest behind his head and tries to calm her heart down. 

"Have I ever told you I love you?" she asks him instead, and he beams as he gently sways her in time with the music. _I love you_ , she thinks, I _deeply truly love you._

"I love you too, Red" he whispers to her as he brings her closer "Harry is a lucky man" 

"Val is a lucky girl" she answers with, her eyes resting on where she stands at the snack table- a long silver dress clinging to her gorgeous figure. She truly is a lucky girl to call Jon hers, and to take him home and kiss him like the way Sansa wishes to kiss him now. But as Sansa holds him on the dancefloor- her face in his neck and his lips at her ear singing Unchained Melody she convinces herself that _she_ is the lucky one. For now she will be. 

For the second time tonight she feels a tap on her shoulder and when she pulls away from Jon she sees Harry standing there. Despite the annoyed look in his eyes he wears a smile on his face. She can feel Jon freeze against her. He has hated Harry since they were all children, and some small part of her can't really blame him. 

"Sorry but could I have my date back?" he asks in a voice dripping with feigned politeness. Sansa wonders if he learned his manners in his posh private school. 

"See you later, Sansa?" Jon turns away from Harry and looks at her, something swimming in those grey eyes that makes Sansa gulp. 

"Yeah Jon, see you later" she tells him and then he is gone, and his body is replaced by Harry's. 

They dance well into the night- to slow songs and rap songs and downright outrageous dance beats that make Sansa's head throb. Or maybe that is because of the tequila shots her and Marg decided to down at the bar, or all the glasses of pink gin and lemonade she has drank. Harry is a good dancer, and she wonders why it had taken him so long to get up all night. Maybe it was shyness, she thinks, but that thought vanishes when he tears off his jacket and swings it around in a circle in the middle of the dancefloor. She can see as he eyes all the females in the room that he is not that shy. 

She can't stop watching Jon and Val dancing, and the way their bodies have partnered and twirled against one another all night. She has tried to dance like that with Harry, much to his wide eyed delight, but she feels like she looks stupid so she stops. Her eyes keep wandering towards them even though Harry keeps twirling her away from Jon any time he gets close. She feels her heart sink as Val leans in close to Jon's ear and whispers something that makes his face colour red. It is then that she sees Val take his hand and lead him from the dance floor. 

_Her and Jon did the deed._ Arya's words play in her head now over the blasting notes of the music and she feels suddenly dizzy and she knows it has nothing to do with alcohol. Harry leans over to her then and roars something to her but she can't hear. All she can feel is a sense of falling and his hands on her hips and the hardness of something pressing against her. All she can feel is _him_ and his hands, and a part of her tries to tell her that it doesn't feel bad to be held by him. It feels _nice_. And she listens to that part as she shakes the thought of Jon out of her mind. 

"Sorry, what did you say?" she shouts into his ear, and she can hear him chuckle a little. A dark sort of sound that sets something in her stomach fluttering. 

"I said do you want to go up to my room?" Harry asks her, and all her care goes out the window as she answers him. 

"Yes" Sansa tells him, and the sober part of her brain screams that this will not end well. But the thought of Jon Snow giving his heart and his body to someone else makes it that much easier for her to put her hand in Harry's and to be lead upstairs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you've enjoyed! this is just a chapter that will set up the events of the rest of the story and the next one will be hopefully up soon. please leave a few comments to let me know if you liked it thank you x


	5. Positively Unexpected

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you all enjoy! leave a few comments and let me know xx

She's ashamed. _So ashamed_. That much is easy to know. 

Sansa has all but avoided normal civilisation close to two weeks now, and hasn't seen Jon since the dance. Each time he has called her- voice heavy over the phone- he has asked if he can see her, if she's alright and if she needs anything. No he can't see her, no she's not alright and yes all she needs right now is her best friend. But the thought of looking into Jon's eyes and knowing that her jealousy over him and his girlfriend is the reason she had decided to sleep with Harry Hardyng is too hard. 

She groans heavily from where she lays under her patchwork quilt- her resting place for the past week and a half- and feels that horrible bubble of disgust well in her stomach. Gods above, she had actually _slept_ with someone. She had actually lost her _virginity_ to some bloke she barely knew. Sure Harry had grown up in the same village, but she didn't truly _know_ him, not well enough to sleep with him. Yet she had. 

It had been horrible- quick and fast and sore and nothing like the romantic part of her had always imagined. Harry had left her alone in the room after; her blush pink dress rolled up to her waist and her knickers around her ankles. She had lay there for almost an hour- crying and shaking and hating herself for allowing him between her legs. What would her mother say if she found out? Her father would probably knock on the Hardyng's door and break Harry's teeth. What would Jon say? He had always hated Harry. 

Her heart sinks all the way to the floor as she revisits that night in her head, and the sick feeling in her stomach only increases. How had she been so naive and stupid to allow Harry to take her upstairs? She had been drinking yes, but had she been _that_ drunk? She remembers being led upstairs, the way Harry's lips had felt nice on her own and then the panic that had arisen in her when he had pushed her onto the bed and let his hands grip her underwear. 

_"Harry, stop" she had told him, but his fingers just hooked themselves around her underwear and pulled._

_"It's alright, Sansa. I won't hurt you"_

But he _had_ hurt her, more than she thought it would hurt. She had talked with Arya after she had lost her virginity to Gendry. Sansa remembers the way Arya had come home with a weird look in her eyes and a soft sort of dreamy smile on her face, and when Sansa had questioned her apparent glee she had told her that her and Gendry had done it. _Done it_. At the time Sansa had been so upset her little sister had lost her virginity before her, but now Sansa wishes she was still a virgin. Arya had described it as sore but then nice and then amazing, and they had tittered and giggled well into the night discussing such things. The rawness between her legs still makes all her imaginings of nice and amazing go out the window. 

Sansa had made a decision that if she was going to tell anyone about this it would be Arya. But for now it was her horrible secret, until Harry decided to tell everyone.

* * *

"How are you feeling, love?" Catelyn asks her that evening when she finally makes her way down the stairs- showered and wearing her oversized stripy jumper and leggings. She feels like a mess but she looks like a horror- her red hair thrown on top of her head and her blue eyes crowned with the effect of sleeplessness. She has always been impeccable with her appearance inside and outside of school, but right now she can't seem to care. Arya sits with their mother at the table, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea and her eyes following her older sisters every move. Sansa feels the weight of her light grey stare and looks away. 

"Not great mum" Sansa answers her glumly as she grabs a pair of combat boots by the door "I'm just going to go the pharmacy to get more of those tablets you gave me the other night. Arya I'm borrowing your boots" 

She expects her sister to yell at her to take them off from where she sits, but her sister stands and hurriedly grabs her black jacket from where it rests on the back of the chair. 

"Sansa do you want me to go? You stay here and rest" she had told her mother she must have gotten food poisoning from the hotel that night at the dance. She hadn't even touched her dinner that night. But explaining to her mum that she was ashamed and mortified at herself for giving her virginity away to someone she barely knew was not something she was about to tell her. Food poisoning was an easier explanantion for staying in bed all day. 

"It's alright Mum, I think the fresh air will do me good" Sansa tells her as she heads to the door, but Arya's call for her to wait stops her in her tracks. 

"I'll go with her Mum and make sure she's alright" Arya says as she throws her jacket on and heads to the door. Sansa can feel a prickle of paranoia and suspicion run down her spine, but she shoves it away. 

The small village is rested at this time of the evening and if Sansa listens close enough she can hear the rush of the sea down at Naerys Cove. She wishes now as her smaller sister links her arm in hers that she was down there with Jon. She misses him, and has wanted him near her these past two weeks, but each time she musters up the courage to walk to his house she is hit with the memory of Harry, and her courage evaporates. Jon's reaction to finding out his best friend has slept with one of his arch enemies will not be pleasant and Sansa will avoid him finding out as long as possible.

"You don't have food poisoning" they have not talked the whole way into town- although not a long walk it has still been one with no conversation between the two sisters. Sansa looks at Arya as she walks beside her, an arm slung in hers and her doe eyes staring at her sisters face. Something akin to _knowing_ lights up the grey, and Sansa finds that she gulps down a bubble of fear that is threatening to choke her. She turns her eyes away from her sister then and decides to focus on the lit up row of shops that they're passing. 

"I must have ate something bad at the hotel. I _have_ been getting sick these past few days" Sansa doesn't know who she's trying to convince, but she knows Arya is not so easily swayed when she sighs heavily. Her arm is pulled from Sansa's as they turn the corner-the brownstone church facing them and the pharmacy just to the right. Arya is younger than Sansa, and smaller, yet Sansa has always felt that Arya is _older_ in some ways- as if she has the soul of an old person inside of her. She knows too much, and sees much more. 

"I know about you and Harry Hardyng" the words floor her and as Arya awaits her answer Sansa can feel her heart crash in her chest. 

"I don't know what you mean" Sansa had tried to make her words sound strong and honest, but they come out as a whisper and a clear lie. 

"You slept with him" Arya announces quietly, her eyes kind and before Sansa can open her mouth to deny the claim her sister holds up a hand and continues "and I'm no idiot Sansa, so don't try to lie to me" 

She decides not to lie, and as she had decided before, Arya will be the one she tells this to. Sansa sighs heavily and walks over to the bench beside the rubbish bin and plonks down. Her sister joins her. 

"How do you know?" Sansa asks her as she looks at the ground- she can't seem to meet her eyes. 

"Harry must of told Joffrey, and Joffrey told Gendry" Arya explains and Sansa feels so stupid in that moment for thinking Harry would never tell anyone, and for forgetting that Arya's boyfriends dad was also Joffrey's. 

"I feel so stupid Arya, so used. It was awful, and I really wish it never happened" she feels like crying a little out of shame and disgust with herself, but her sister's arm around her back stops any tears from shedding. It always comes as a little shock to Sansa when Arya is caring towards her, and even now as she sits here with a heart so heavy, she can feel a little better at the comfort of knowing Arya doesn't hate her as much as she always pretends to. 

They haven't always been close, and while growing up Sansa had more often than not felt like the only girl in the family. Arya had much preferred hanging out with her brothers instead of joining Sansa in the garden for tea parties. They had always fought non stop about everything and anything growing up, and even now they have the occasional tiff. Sansa's prim and properness was always the butt of Arya's jokes. She even calls her _Lady_ Sansa as some sort of sneer. _Gods above_ , Sansa thinks, _all my prim and properness and ladylike ways are gone now. All because of Harry._

"Sansa, it's not so bad" Arya's hand rubs small circles into her back, and Sansa can't help but eye her suspiciously. She's being so nice, she thinks silently in her head. 

"Not so bad! Arya I gave away my virginity to him! I don't even really know Harry that well. I'm no better than a slag" Sansa can feel the tears of mortification slide down her cheeks but she wipes them away furiously. 

"Girls give their virginites away to blokes they don't really know all the time. That's not the issue you need to be worried about" Arya's voice gets very low then and Sansa turns her head to look at her sister with a furrowed brow. 

"What's the issue then?" Sansa wonders what her sister is thinking then when she closes her eyes for a second and takes a deep breath. 

"You need to take a pregnancy test" 

She can feel the bench underneath her sway and the ground beneath her feet is tilting a little. Sansa shakes her head then, a stuttering sound trying to make it's way out of her mouth but she finds that a few minutes go by before she can speak clearly. 

"A pregnancy test?" she asks in a splutter and her sister nods her head "Arya that's ridiculous of course I don't need to take a pregnancy test" 

"Did Harry use protection?" Arya asks her and Sansa tries to delve into her memory and figure out if she remembers Harry using a condom. Did he? She can't remember him putting one on, but then again she can't remember a lot of things about that night. 

"I don't know" she finds herself whispering. 

"You're not on the pill either Sansa, so there's that. I don't believe that you have food poisoning but I did hear you getting sick these past few mornings" her sister says "just take a test to make sure" 

She doesn't know how she had been convinced to walk into the pharmacy and ask for a pregnancy test, but she does it because Arya would not relent. Her sister's pleas had been insistent even though Sansa had argued with her non stop for almost half an hour about how ridiculous she sounded. But Arya wouldn't bring something up like this if she wasn't truly concerned about her sister. It's not just Arya's voice that is in her head though- her own conscience has taken up residence in her mind and it is telling her that Arya could very well be right. 

She tucks the blue and white box with the pregnancy test under her jumper and tries her hardest to act normal as she walks back into the house with Arya. She almost dies a little when she spots her father sitting on the sofa with her mother, and she tries to smile at him when he turns around to face his daughters. Does she imagine the way his eyes flicker between his girls? The way they quickly drop to her folded hands across her stomach that are holding the pregnancy test in her jumper? Of course she's imagining it, she thinks, she's just paranoid. 

Her tiny ensuite bathroom seems even more claustrophobic as she sits herself down on the toilet. Her heart pounds in her chest and her mouth goes dry and Sansa doesn't know how much time has passed before she decides to open up the box and take out the blue and white stick. 

She emerges from the bathroom when it's done and when the time has passed for the results to show. Arya sits up suddenly from where she lays across Sansa's bed and eyes her shaking sister curiously. She already knows the answer deep down, but she decides to ask it anyway. 

"What does it say?" 

"It's positive" Sansa cries, her shaking hands showing Arya the test "I'm pregnant" 

 

 

 


End file.
